Bits and Pieces
by badriddance
Summary: Small Captcha ficlets from the kinkmeme. Blair Roche, Rorschach/Nite Owl, Grice, Twilight Lady, and Post-GN Adrian are mentioned so far.
1. Chapter 1

Captcha prompt: **marina 1975**

Ghosts were set free by fire, but they couldn't cross running water.

When the building had burned, Blair had been free to leave it, had called to the bewildered shade dogs to follow her as she followed the man who had come to save her, lost children all.

He walked as if he had somewhere to go, but she could sense the desperation coming off him. His sense of purpose had glowed off him like a bonfire, but doused in blood and darkness, it was flickering, the SOS of a soul in torment. Blair wanted to help him. He had tried to help her. His grief at failing was terrible. She wanted to tell him she was all right. He needed something, someone, she could tell. His sanity fluttered like wings that couldn't remember the way to a Nest. There was some something, someone, there that he wanted to run to.

Blair knew how he felt. She couldn't go home. The dogs paced in circles around her, not understanding. They whined and snuffled. They had never been out of their yard before, and the sharp scent of sea and motors at the marina unnerved them.

She couldn't follow him when he started over the bridge. She called after him, but he didn't hear. She was left on the walkway, looking down at the water, black as the ink in the mask. The dogs crowded in on each side of her and she put an arm around each one. They would have to find their own way into the light. Hopefully, the man in the mask would too.


	2. Chapter 2

Captcha prompt: **naiades 1977 **

_I keep getting captchas with 1977 in them! And water. Oh well, here's the Roche incident from Grice's POV. _

Grice crossed the river on the way home. It was a long walk across the bridge, but better than the ferry. He hated the wait, and he hated being so close to the water. The water could reach him on the ferry and he didn't trust it. He trusted solid things, like knives and cleavers, and flesh and blood things that could be made to obey, like dogs and little girls.

Water wasn't like that. Couldn't be gripped or controlled, beaten into submission, or cut into pieces too small to be a threat. Even on the bridge, he could see the water twining below. It was always moving, never just sat there like a natural part of the landscape, always twisting and twitching, reflecting light of some parts and nothing but black depths in others.

It was easy to imagine shapes moving in it. Sharks, squids, ghosts of all the drowned, undulating under the surface like mating snakes. Even when he tried not to look, the corner of his eye would catch the light on the ripples and the surface of the river would look like a mass of limbs, like an orgy of sirens and water nymphs waiting their chance to get him.

The river couldn't be kept still, or quiet, or removed when he couldn't stand the sight anymore. The waters weren't afraid of him, wouldn't obey. They were stronger and he hated them for that, especially on the nights _before_ he did it, when he thought maybe it would be better to give up and just jump. He never did though, and afterwards laughed at himself for being so dramatic. He was always calmer afterwards.

What did he have to worry about after all? The deed was done, the mess was clean, and once he was back on solid ground, he didn't have a care in the world. Even when his dogs didn't bark to greet him, his good mood didn't falter.


	3. Chapter 3

Captcha prompt: **Woodworm into **

He had not expected to want this so badly. It had been such a slow, gradual thing. Acknowledgment became partnership became trust became, what? Camaraderie? Brothers in arms? And whatever that had been had deepened into this, whatever this was. It had burrowed in under the layers, under his skin, leaving holes in the armor and hollow places under his resolve. How long would it take for the outside surface to crumble with all that eating away at his insides? What would be left of him if he couldn't stop it somehow?

He did his best, grinding down every offer of warmth before the answering heat inside him could trace through all the gnawed trails. He held it off as long as he could.

Then came the night that things went so wrong. It was the innocent left bloody on the ground while the guilty ran laughing off into the dark. He had lost his partner for nearly three hours, and with all the blood he had expected the worst. All his frustration and fury and grief had found purchase in those eaten away holes under his surface. He couldn't crush it or escape it. It filled all his empty places and eroded out the edges, opening them wider, making him howl with things he shouldn't have been able to feel, and it wasn't until a hand fell on his shoulder and squeezed that his outside surface finally collapsed.

He turned to see Nite Owl there, injured, battered, but more concerned about _him_ than his own injuries and so much more than he had dared to hope for that it could only be a miracle. He had crumbled like worm-eaten wood and Nite Owl had bent down, asking if he was all right, and of course he wasn't. There wasn't enough of him left to be all right anymore. All he could do now was become what had eaten him, to find something warm and good to burrow into until he didn't feel so hollow.

Nite Owl was bent over him like a comforting wave, hands roaming for injuries, mouth moving with anxious questions. "Where are you hurt? What happened? What do you need?" And there was only one answer to that.

It wasn't as much of a kiss as it was an attack. Lips and teeth clashed painfully, drawing blood. His arms locked around Nite Owl the way they might have restrained a criminal, one elbow curved around his neck, the other pinning Nite Owl 's arm behind his back. He felt the gasp, part shock, part pain, a hot burst of air into his own mouth. It left an opening for him to bore into, his tongue forcing its way deeper while his fingernails tried to dig through the armor, and every part of him was straining and clawing for a way to get closer and deeper and _inside_.


	4. Chapter 4

Captcha prompt: 1,640,000,000 ashiest

The morgues were full, the hospitals were full, the streets were full. The bodies couldn't all be identified, especially if anyone who could identify them was also dead. Eventually, all they could do was place a number on the chest of each body, photograph it, and then burn the corpse. If anyone came looking, they could flip through what the workers were grimly calling 'The Family Album'. Whole families were dead, whole neighborhoods. It was impossible to say how many would die in the next few days, not found in time, or hurt too badly to survive even if they were. The numbers kept rising, along with the smoke.

It was a miserable job, but it had to be done. After the first week or so, the workers numbers dropped. Some were found at home dead by their own hands rather than face another day of throwing their neighbors into the quickly-built furnace. Some couldn't bring themselves to die, knowing that they would have to go into the fire too.

No snow this Christmas, nothing clean enough to be white. It was nothing but ashes now, drifting and swirling, black on the skin, but gray against the dark sky. It choked the living, coated them with the smell of burning hair and grease. The only thing that seemed to get it off was tears, and there wasn't of those left in the city to wash it clean again.

It even coated the windows hundreds of feet up. Not even the richest, smartest man left alive could see clearly through it anymore, even if he wanted to.


	5. Chapter 5

Captcha prompt: Reposing sedating

"It was the only way," Dan kept saying. His hands were nervous on the steering, and his eyes were constantly going back over his shoulder.

"He is going to kill you when he wakes up," Laurie whispered. She was wide-eyed with horror. Of all the atrocities she had been witness to in the last 24 hours, this is the one that had her huddled in the passenger seat. She absolutely refused to look back.

"I know," Dan whispered. "I know. I know. I betrayed him. He'll never forgive me. Oh God. I am dead."

Silence fell and he looked back again to where Rorschach's still form was wrapped in his snow cloak. It had been a sucker punch. He hadn't planned to do it. The tachyons must've blocked Jon's knowledge of it too, because the blue man had blinked, almost looking startled when Dan had barreled out after Rorschach and punched him out cold before he could turn. Stunned, Rorschach was hefted over Dan's shoulder and bustled into Archie, where all the sedatives Dan could stand to force down him were.

Now he lay there, wrapped in downy whiteness, mask clenched in the fist that Dan expected (deserved) to get a much better look at soon.

"It was the only way," he repeated, maybe hoping Rorschach could hear it in his drugged state. "Jon would've killed him, or Adrian, or he would've frozen to death trying to walk home from Antarctica…"

He looked over his shoulder again, Rorschach's battered face looked as close to serene as it had probably ever been, still bruised, still haggard, but relaxed. For now. Rorschach probably hadn't eaten or slept in a long time, which meant the tranquilizers had no competition in his system, which hopefully meant he'd be out for hours and groggy for a few more. Long enough for them to come up with a plan, an excuse, an alternative to throwing his life away. Anything.

"He'll kill you, and then kill me, and Archie will crash in the middle of the ocean and he'll drown and be dead anyway," Laurie moaned. "What are we going to do when he wakes up?"

"I saved some of the tranqs," Dan offered. "Didn't want to kill him. If we can just keep him under 'til we're home…"

"I think I'd like one now," she decided, almost joking before her voice turned serious. "Dan? When he wakes up…"

"I know!" Dan almost whined, but then took a deep breath. "But I couldn't just let him… I had to do something, and there was no way he'd walk away. Had to be carried. Had to be _dragged_. Had to be done." He looked over his shoulder one more time, resolve soothing some of his jitters. "He's still alive and so are we."

"For the moment!"

"And that's what matters. Deep breaths. We have a few hours to rest and get our strength back for when he does wake up."

"I think I really would like one of those tranqs."

"I'll split one with you."


	6. Chapter 6

Captcha prompt: concelebrated inkier

"Spider wearing a hat," Dan said suddenly. Rorschach looked up from the map of the sewer system he was looking at to find his partner staring intently.

"What?" he asked after a moment passed with no explanation.

"Two mice kissing," Dan said, straight-faced. Was this some sort of code or had years of tap water finally taken their toll? They were in an abandoned building that had been a church until the ceiling had fallen in, kneeling in a clear spot, looking for the sewer access point. Surrounded by remains of Communion cushions and a splintered aspersory and with thoughts of a string of murders leading them down into the abyss one more time, Dan had been anxious to find something painless to focus on.

"Sword with wings," he said, and Rorschach finally realized he was naming the blots as they morphed on his face. He rolled his eyes, a wasted gesture that no one saw.

"Man cut in half."

"Wonder about your childhood sometimes, Daniel."


	7. Chapter 7

Captcha prompt: flabbier light

She hadn't seen him in years, not since she had gotten out of jail. She hadn't been well in a long time, but the Pyramid's health benefits weren't that great, thankful as she was to have work with no questions asked. She was still pretty, still made the other ex-cons grin and catcall when she sashayed by at work. It required a little more padding now. She was getting thinner every month.

She didn't want to go to the doctor. Her mother and grandmother had both died of the same thing and she had never doubted that the same fate was waiting for her. There wasn't any point in fighting it. Nor like poor Jacobi was. He lived in a rathole apartment and worked extra shifts to pay for his treatments. Leslie didn't want to know. She decided she would rather live her life as unchanged as possible and die quietly without interference. No painful treatments. No endless parade of doctors. No shelling out for medications that would only delay the inevitable, but not the pain.

Acceptance or not, she sometimes still went out. It helped to visit old haunts, even just to walk by and breath in the familiar air. And on one occasion she had seen an old enemy. He was still adorable and the old rush of infatuation sang up through her veins, making her break into a giddy grin. He had put on some weight and in the harsh light of day she could see his sweater pull a little tight around the new girth.

Marshmellowy, she thought fondly, soft and sweet, always sweet, the sweetest of the sweet. She wanted for a moment to sneak up on him and dig her hands into his paunch, tickle him until he jiggled. He was ticklish, she remembered well. Around his ribs and behind his knees especially.

But, that would let him see her, and if he did, he would probably stammer for something polite to say about how she hadn't changed, when she had. Or he might not recognize her at all, which would be heartbreaking. She'd rather he remembered her as she had been, sleek and powerful and laughing at Death, not holding his boney hand on the long walk to the grave. She couldn't resist walking by him, letting her hand brush his as she went. He glanced her way, but only saw a blur of bottle-red hair and dark glasses before turning back to his own route.

They were the same now, no matter that they had been on opposite sides in the old days. She wasn't the Twilight Lady anymore, and he wasn't the Nite Owl, at least not on the surface. Whatever was left of both of those people was buried deep under layers of reality and time. There wasn't any going back to the way they had been, nice as it was to imagine it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Captcha prompt: induces the**

Rorschach had lurched in at some ungodly hour of the morning, noisier than usual, and reeking of smoke and blood, babbling about dogs and monsters. Dan tried to get an explanation out of him and ended up having to hold him while his voice rose, refusing to flinch when the desperate hands became fists. He let Rorschach scream and thrash in the grip of whatever he had seen and done that night.

He wasn't making sense, but he didn't have to. Dan was a detective too. He knew better than to offer any comforting 'It will be all right' or 'it's ok now's. It wouldn't be all right, it wasn't ok. A child was dead. A hero had failed.

"You can do this," he said instead. "You can stand it."

"The dogs!" Rorschach insisted.

"Tell me what happened," Dan begged again. "Get it out. Just try. Get it out." Rorschach sucked in a breath and choked on it. He gagged and clawed at his throat. Dan dragged him to the sink, helped him pull the bloody, smoky clothes open. The hat was knocked off and the mask was hitched up. Rorschach retched and heaved over the sink, clutching the counter. Dan still held him. He felt useless, no comfort to offer except rubbing his suffering friend's back, while more horror than even Rorschach could stomach fought its way out of him.

Nothing came up, making Dan wonder how much Rorschach had had to eat that day. It seemed like hours that they stood there. Rorschach struggled to expel whatever had him so choked until he was too exhausted to gag anymore. Both of them ended up in the floor below the sink, in each others arms.

"Empty," Rorschach whispered into Dan's shoulder.

"Not alone," Dan said back, hoping it was true.


	9. Chapter 9

**Captcha prompt: the cicatrix **

"Remember?"

The scar was right along the seam of his armor, under his arm. The touch of lips on it was more reminder than the question. Only someone who had known how his armor went on and came off would've known to stab him there. And she had.

She had never used weapons before that he was aware of. She had always seemed so sexily harmless compared to the other villains. She never killed anyone, never even really hurt them, unless you counted embarrassment as pain. That's why he hadn't believed it when she produced the gun.

"Three's a crowd," she had said when Rorschach burst in and she had fired. The fedora had flipped into the air as Rorschach collapsed. The light outside had gleamed like an eye of judgment through the bullet hole in the hat as it fell back down to the slumped body. She had turned back to him with her usual wicked grin, daring him to be angry with her, and he had snapped. Her smile had gone egg-shaped as he punched her. Her nose broke under the first one. The second drove one of her front teeth down her throat.

She had lashed out at him, something cold and thin driving through the seam of his armor and under his rib. He hadn't screamed, just roared, and the terror in her remaining eye made him bare his own teeth in a feral grin. She had believed he was going to kill her, enough to try to stab him to save herself, and the unholy satisfaction that spurred had drowned out the pain. His fingers had dug into her throat and she had jerked the knife free, sending a hot slickness spreading under the suit.

Where had she even hidden a knife and a gun? Had to be the boots. The rest was just a leotard. He had driven a knee into her stomach, feeling the air forced out under his stranglehold. She tried to stab him again. The blade glanced off his armor this time, but his head still swam. He had been bleeding pretty badly, which meant he had to finish her off before he passed out. He had let go of her neck, fumbling for a crescent. She took another wild stab at him, but her fist had been caught in midair and brutally snapped.

The both looked up to see Rorschach. His hat was gone and his posture was all dazed pain, but it didn't stop him from kicking her in the ribs. She slammed backwards against the wall, knife falling from her broken hand.

"Alive?" Dan had wheezed, and he had tasted blood. Rorschach sank to his knees beside him.

"Rubber bullet," he said, voice unsteady as his hands. "S-stunned. You?"

"Cut," Dan had said, leaning into him. "I… I saw the hole in your hat…"

"Last week. Threw hat to distract policeman. He shot it." Rorschach had him by the arms now and was easing him back to lay down on the floor. Good. Relief and blood loss had made him woozy. He could lose consciousness safely now, so he had let his eyes close.

When they opened again he had been sprawled on his own couch, the caterpillar-like bristle of sutures against the soft skin of his upper, inner arm. Rorschach had been dozing on the floor next to him, head leaning against the couch, and an ice pack on what had to be a concussion. Dan had felt weak and dizzy and a little nauseous, especially when he remembered his berserker attack on Leslie. Rubber bullet. She had been trying to scare him. He had wanted to beat her all over again just imagining that she had made him think she had killed his partner. Had she done it just to provoke him? She did love to get a reaction. Had she survived it, really gone to France? He found it hard to care, even now, years later.

The kisses moved down to his stomach and Dan's fingers tightened on the fedora. One of his fingers traced the old bullet hole, feeling the latex underneath.

"I remember."


	10. Chapter 10

**Captcha prompt: barefoot 4871)**

He was dragged barefoot into processing. They took his shoes, but not for the usual reasons. None of them cared if he killed himself. Maybe he really would rather die than be captured, but that wasn't an option at the moment. That wasn't why they had taken his shoes. They just thought it was hilarious that Rorschach wasn't as tall without them. They grinned and laughed and congratulated themselves.

The fingerprint clerk was the only one not even smiling. He kept his eyes down, and only looked at Rorschach's shackled hands. He started the fingerprints without joining in any of the commotion. Under all the mocking noise, his voice was barely audible.

"You saved my niece a few years ago," he said, still not looking up. "Always wanted to thank you. Sorry that this is how I got to."

He was head and shoulders taller than Rorschach, and his shadow threw a gray wall over the black and white fingerprints. A man his size should've been on the streets working, not behind a desk with an inkpad. Maybe he didn't have the temperament for it, wanted to help, but lacked the steel to go out and bloody his hands with more than ink.

The floor was warm under Rorschach's feet by the time it was done, but as soon as he was pulled away, he stepped into a cold puddle from one of the officer's shoes. He processed it as numbly as he had the clerk's whisper and was forced down a cold hall painted in shades of gray.


	11. Chapter 11

Captcha prompt: wastrels matzoh-balls

Rorschach's Journal  
April 11, 1979

Shouldn't be surprised by how low even good men can sink, but couldn't help be disappointed when I saw Dreiberg stop for the whore when she called out to him. Only heard a few words of her offer from my vantage point, but didn't matter. Expected better of him than to walk over and speak to her. He kept his voice low, still had the decency to be ashamed. Girl looked surprised, then uncertain. His tastes too filthy for even her? Felt a little sick for both their sakes when she nodded and they started down the sidewalk together.

He didn't take her to his house, which is something. Followed them, not out of curiousity, but some resigned need to bear witness to his Fall. Would it shame him back to a higher path to be caught with that grim little creature? Especially if it was me? Was it worth it to even make that attempt when he had already sunk lower than I had ever imagined he would?

He led the way into a deli. Have seen him go there a few times, but he's as wishy-washy with faith as he is with anything that requires resolve. He doesn't disappear into the bathroom with her. They make no move to duck into the alley to the right of the door. When they reappear, she's carrying Styrofoam containers of matzo-balls, laughing at him, but her jacket is zipped all the way now. He hands her some plastic-wrapped utensils.

"What?" he asked, sounding too cheerful. "$20 was spent, balls will be sucked. All requirements have been met! It was your own idea," he added mock-severely when she burst out laughing. Felt a little ill again, but no time to dwell on it.

"That's the dirtiest thing a nice guy ever said to me," she said. She thanked him. They went separate ways. Sick feeling went away, but kept following him. Still has a grip on his morals. Proved it today. No sense of propriety where money is concerned though. No reason to waste that much money on one meal for a stranger. Not his money though. Father made it. Maybe if he had earned it himself, he wouldn't be so frivolous. I shouldn't waste so much time on him, either. Other work to be done. Still, felt better about it as I started over the bridge.


End file.
